The present application relates to modifying materials to increase their emissivity, and particularly relates to methods to increase the emissivity of metals for uses such as the absorption or emission of heat.
Materials with surfaces having high emissivity serve many useful functions, including the efficient absorption and emission of heat. In particular, electrical heating elements are used in numerous devices such as industrial reactors and ovens. Electrical energy applied to the heating element is converted into heat in the heating element and transferred from the heating element to another object, such as a part of the device or a workpiece being processed by the device.
In many devices, radiation is a significant mode of heat transfer. For example, in reactors used to process semiconductor wafers, a heating element is spaced apart from a carrier holding the wafers, and transfers heat to the carrier by radiant heat transfer.
In radiant heat transfer, the amount of heat transferred from a heating element increases with the temperature of the heating element and also varies directly with the emissivity of the heating element. The same is true for the amount of heat or radiation absorbed by the part being heated. As further discussed below, emissivity is a ratio between the amount of radiation emitted from a surface and the amount of radiation emitted by a theoretically perfect emitting surface referred to as a “black body,” both being at the same temperature. The emissivity of a surface can be stated as a percentage of black body emissivity. A heating element having a higher emissivity radiates more energy at a given temperature. Unfortunately, many materials which have other desirable properties for use as heating elements also have relatively low emissivity.
Presently, the most widely used methods for increasing the surface emissivity are mechanical processing of the surface aimed to increase the surface area, and coating the surface with high-emissivity materials.
Mechanical surface treatments include various groove cutting, knurling, and different forms of blasting. These processes are sometimes difficult to control and may sometimes cause unacceptable results when used alone, especially for very thin parts such as certain resistive heater elements. Most importantly, they typically produce only modest increases in emissivity. For example, the emissivity of molybdenum sheet increases from 14-15% to 20-25% after sand blasting or shot peening.
Another methodology for increasing surface emissivity is coating the surface of a first material with second materials of high emissivity. This typically results in surface emissivity equal to that of the coating. This can produce the desired higher emissivity results at room temperature, but the reliability of the coating at high temperatures and in aggressive thermal, pressure or reactive environments is usually low. One reason for this is, for example, a difference in linear expansion between the base material and coating. After several thermal cycles, the coating may start to crack and peel off. Moreover, many coatings have low mechanical strength and are easily scraped or otherwise removed from the surface during installation and exploitation. Lastly, for the applications such as semiconductor, medical, food, pharmaceutical, etc. industries, there are issues of chemical compatibility with process environment and contamination of the process by the material of the coating.
Another possible way to increase surface emissivity is to apply a coating having the same composition as the base material, using a coating process such as a chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process tuned in such a way as to produce very irregular surface morphology. The main shortcoming of those coatings is very low mechanical strength and low adhesion to the surface of the base material.
Thus, despite all of the efforts in the art, there has been a need for further improved methods for increasing the emissivity of elements such as heating elements.